1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a ZIF connector and a semiconductor testing device. More particularly, the present invention relates to a ZIF connector provided with circuit patterns, and also relates to a semiconductor testing device including the ZIF connector.
2. Description of Related Art
ZIF (Zero Insertion Force) connectors are commonly used in semiconductor testing devices or apparatuses. Please refer to FIG. 1 for an assembly of a conventional ZIF connector 11 and a test load board 12 (or a substrate of a probe card). As can be seen in the drawing, a rivet 14 directly passes through holes 16 of the ZIF connector 11 and of the test load board 12 to fasten the ZIF connector 11 to the test load board 12. Besides, two lines of golden fingers 13 flanking the ZIF connector 11 are electrically connected with a female header (not shown) of the ZIF connector 11. In the aforementioned rivet-based assembly, only when the magnitude and direction of force exerted to swage the rivet 14 are precisely controlled can all the golden fingers 13 properly contact electrical pads (not shown) formed on the test load board 12 while a predetermined interval A and a predetermined pre-pressure are maintained, thereby establishing a stable impedance match and in turn obtaining stable testing signals. In wafer testing, since the ZIF connector 11 typically undergoes repeated insertion to and extraction from the female header thereof, the golden fingers 13 will get worn and torn so that the interval A and the pre-pressure are changed. Eventually, when poor contact adversely affecting the testing results happens between the golden fingers 13 and the test load board 12, the entire probe card must be checked and maintenance performed.
Moreover, due to the particular structure of the conventional ZIF connector, interface impedances exist between the golden fingers 13 and the fastener (e.g., the rivet 14) and between the golden fingers 13 and the conventional large-scaled print circuit board 12, respectively. Such interface impedances distort the testing signals passing through the golden fingers 13. In addition, the conventional large-scaled expensive print circuit board 12 is large-scaled so that the print circuit board 12 has to keep coplanar contact with a plurality of conventional ZIF connectors via golden fingers exposed from conventional ZIF connectors to avoid poor contact between the print circuit board 12 and conventional ZIF connectors. Therefore, in practice, the conventional ZIF connectors bring adverse effects to semiconductor testing applications.